"Feeling like a dweeb with a paper calendar? Try the Palm Club"
"I didn't even realize it until a recent dinner party. The conversation turned to
information I now carried conveniently in the Palm Pilot in my purse.
Before I knew it, we were beaming business cards across the room and into each
other's Palm.
If you think palm is a tree and beaming is ``Star Trek'' transportation, you're
not in the club. Members are the 8 million-plus people who have bought handheld
electronic organizers.
``I would attend meetings with (electronic organizer) users, and I felt like a
dweeb with my paper calendar. I knew I had to be a part of this Palm club,''
said Rossmoor resident Konya Vivanti. ``I use it for my shopping list at the
supermarket. My husband thinks I'm nuts, but I caught him using it to add items
to the shopping list.'' Palm, majority-owned by 3Com, has more than 80 percent
of the market for handheld electronic organizers. The ``Palm'' name has become
generic for all handhelds _ for the moment what Kleenex is to facial tissue.
The Palm users and their subculture exemplify a major change under way: small
and powerful gizmos will run our lives in a few years in that long-awaited
convergence of phones, handheld computers and Internet access.
I'm hardly an early adopter of new technology: I never bought an Atari game
system. I don't write html despite having had PCs in my house for 20 years. And
I have yet to use my cell phone longer than the basic 30 minutes a month.
But I needed an alternative when I couldn't put my personal-contact management
software _ containing several thousand people _ on my new work computer.
The Palm seemed like the solution. I could transfer my contacts back and forth
between PC and Palm.
Palms sell for $150 to $450. Handspring Visors, which use the Palm operating
system, sell for $150 to $250. Royal Davinci and Casio make $100 handhelds.
Pocket PCs using Microsoft's CE cost $500 to $600.
I concluded the 6-ounce Palm IIIx could replace my notepad and calendar without
adding more weight to my already shoulder-slumping purse. I chose the Palm IIIx
instead of the ``sleek styling'' of the Palm V at 2 ounces lighter, because IIIx
had twice the memory and was expandable. My Palm powered up instantly and picked
up all the contact data from my PC by a method called HotSync. It actually ran
for a couple of months at a time on two AAA batteries. Graffiti, a way to enter
data by handwriting, actually was easy to learn.
In short, the Palm worked as well as advertised.
Its calculator, to-do list, memo pad and calendar were nice features I'd never
use, I thought. I laughed when I got a catalog of Palm accessories soon after my
purchase: water-resistant, Neoprene cases; teal-colored flip covers, a
three-pack of stylus used to activate the Palm.
``Who'd buy such frivolous stuff? `` I wondered. I soon found out.
I started noticing handhelds everywhere. In almost every business office I spot
HotSync cradles perched beside desktop computers. At business meetings, people
open their leather cases to check a calendar or phone number on Palm.
In the Register's Web site office, Vice President Jim Wolcott keeps his Palm
next to his PC keyboard.
``At least 15 people at myorangecounty.com have them,'' he said.
``I've become the recording secretary at editors' meetings because I take notes
on my Palm, then beam it to the others or HotSync it to my PC and e-mail it.
``I bought one for my son,'' Wolcott added, ``because he was spending an hour a
day rewriting stuff in his Franklin Planner. In the Palm, you just change the
date.''
During a telephone interview, Whittier entrepreneur Sharlene Metcalf stopped
mid-sentence. ``Let me write that in my Palm. My dad got me one for my 18th
birthday today.'' Then there was that party. Rob Ryan, co-founder of
GoSalesPeople Interactive in Dana Point, beamed his business information from
his Palm V to my Palm IIIx, using their infrared ports. Sales people do this all
the time at trade shows, he said.
Doug Johnson, head of Outta Site Productions, a Mission Viejo Web site and
e-commerce developer, was there too.
``I was at a business meeting where the leader was writing on the white board in
Graffiti,'' he commented. ``Nobody seemed to notice because they all owned
Palms, too.'' Ryan added, ``I think mobile professionals _ sales people,
attorneys, consultants _ are more likely to use this than people who sit at one
desk every day. My partner and I shoot information back and forth all the time
because we're both going in different directions, meeting different people.''
Even though Ryan's company is based on the
Internet, he doesn't plan to buy the Palm VII, which has wireless Internet
access.
``I'm not a total geekhead,'' he said.
Neither is Jared, the title character on ``The Pretender'' TV show, who I saw
pull one out of his duffle bag. Then former astronaut Buzz Aldrin floated by
with a Palm in hand during a commercial for Fidelity Investments.
I stumbled across Web sites with stories from people about how they broke their
Palms and were grieving as though they had lost the family pet.
Vivanti, who works for Culver City, knows how they feel. She experienced Palm
withdrawal when hers had to be returned to 3Com for repairs.
Portable electronic phone books are hardly new. Monarch Beach Internet
consultant Warren Hoffnung owned a Casio Boss in the 1980s. It was supposed to
trade information with a PC, but it never worked, he said.
This time around Hoffnung bought a Royal Davinci with similar features to a Palm
V at a third the price.
``These things started as the latest in a series of status symbols,'' Hoffnung
said. ``Remember when the only people who had pagers were fire and rescue
workers?
Then everyone had to have one.
Same thing with the cell phone.'' Today, the Palm VII has wireless Internet
access. The creators of the Palm left 3Com to start Handspring, whose handhelds
have expansion slots for phones, digital cameras, music players and more.
Microsoft's Pocket PC can use Internet Explorer, download e-books, record voices
and play music.
And thousands of companies, such as Biomerica, Inc. in Newport Beach, are
scrambling to further extend handheld functions.
This summer Biomerica will roll out software that will allow doctors to enter a
patient's symptoms, find out what drugs that person's insurance will cover, how
it may conflict with drugs already being taken and other information.
``We project it will be 2003 before these (handhelds) are inexpensive enough and
ubiquitous enough for widespread uses,'' said Biomerica spokesman Carl Merkle.
Batteries are going to be the big issue, he added. A Palm works for a couple of
months on one set of batteries. Cell phones last less than a day before
recharging.
Notebooks last two to four hours.
``As these handhelds do more, they become power hogs,'' Merkle said. ``That has
to be resolved.'' I'll get my convergence device when it fits in my pocket and
weighs less than 6 ounces. Palm info at your fingertips: Web sites to maximize
your fun with an electronic handheld organizer. www.nicholson.com/rhn/palm
faq.txt Home of ``Ron Nicholson's Short and Completely Unofficial FAQ on PalmOS
Handhelds. `` These information sources not on the 3Com payroll give you the
real skinny on Palm quirks. www.oreilly.com/palmpilot Another ``unofficial''
site from O'Reilly, publisher of computer books. News, tips and tricks for the
Palm, plus contests for creators of applications. Pyramid Solitaire, anyone?
www.palminfocenter.com/grav eyard/ Here are the stories of how people broke
their Palm. Gruesome, but instructive. Don't slam your Palm in the cab door.
www.palmblvd.com Another independent resource for Palm users. Frequently asked
questions answered in layman's terms. www.palm.com, www.handspring.com or
www.microsoft/pocketpc OK, so maybe you want the official sites for Palm,
Handspring's Visor or Pocket PC. The customer support is surprisingly useful. I
solved some of my Palm problems merely by following online instructions.
(c) 2000, The Orange County Register (Santa Ana, Calif.).
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